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FOUR HORSES On Thursday the farmer put four horses into the cut hay-field next to the house. Since then the days have been filled with the sheen of their brown hides racing the fence edge. Since then I see their curved necks through the kitchen window sailing like swans past the pale field. Each morning their hooves fill my open door with an urgency for something just beyond my grasp and I spend my whole day in an idiot joy writing, gardening, and looking for it under every stone. I find myself wanting to do something stupid and lovely. I find myself wanting to walk up and thank the farmer for those dark brown horses and see him stand back laughing in his grizzled and denim wonder at my innocence. I find myself wanting to run down First Street like an eight year old saying, "Hey! Come and look at the new horses in Fossek's field!" And I find myself wanting to ride into the last hours of this summer bareback and happy as the hooves of the days that drum toward me. I hear the whinny of their fenced and abandoned freedom and feel happy today in the field of my own making, writing non-stop, my head held high, ranging the boundaries of a birthright exuberance. From The House of Belonging
Four Horses
I have always loved this poem. It brings back the exhilaration and unfettered joy one feels as a child. Reading it as an adult I realize that joy is still there, still to be tapped into and felt - needing no logical reason. What is it about horses - free even when contained behind a fence? Thank you
I love the structure of this poem as in the first three verses David simply observes the horses (humans do seem to have a primal connection with horses) and in verses 4 and 5 he notes how they have ignited in him an "urgency for something beyond his grasp". Then in verses 6, 7 and 8 he speaks of something "stupid and lovely" they make him want to do. But in verse 9 he joins with the horse, riding "bareback and happy" and in verse 10 becomes the horse "in the field of my own making." - ending in verse 11 "my head held high (like the swan necks of the four horses) ranging the boundaries" of that field. And happily for us, David was inspired to write about the experience. I love the verse : ".. and I spend my whole day in an idiot joy writing, gardening, and looking for it under every stone." Looking for that thing beyond his grasp, as we all do when moved by something primal, beyond the ordinary.